Before Pudge Rodriguez and Magglio Ordonez, the Tigers’ big splash in the free agent market came on Dec. 17, 1983, when they signed the 36-year-old slugger.

As most seasoned Tigers fans remember, the free agency was anathema to the club’s leadership. Former Tigers GM Jim Campbell hated paying for his own free agent players — and loved to trade them before their walk year. He certainly wasn’t going to dole out cash for someone else’s players.

That changed in 1983 when Evans chose a Detroit offer which was, of course, lower than those of the Yankees, Giants and other clubs that tried to sign, or in the case of San Francisco, re-sign him. The allure of joining a team poised to win now (or then, as it were) made Detroit the best choice.

In his first game as a Tiger, April 3, 1984, Evans homered of the Twins’ Keith Comstock — a three-run jack — and Detroit was off to the races. A week later, on Opening Day in Detroit, he homered in his first Tiger Stadium at bat, an upper-deck blast of the Rangers Dave Stewart. He’d hit only 14 more home runs that year, but quickly became a fan favorite.

In five seasons with the Tigers, Evans hit 141 of his career 414 home runs. In 1989, he finished his career where it began: with the Atlanta Braves.

Today’s Tigers fans may be used to their team being in the mix for big-name free agents. But it certainly wasn’t the case in the late 1970s and early ’80s. And what better guy to break that bad habit than Darrell Evans?